M35/NGC 2158

[NGC 1502]

 

Last night at short notice, 3 of us from my local club went to our dark site. One of the reasons for us going was to view and image comet 46P Wirtanen. It was easily found with my 70mm Pronto and naked eye.

Following that, many other objects followed, including M35.  Using my TV Pronto at 14x I realised that the much dimmer NGC 2158 less than half a degree south was apparent with averted vision as a fuzzy blob. I was amazed that the much dimmer companion to M35 was seen with such a modest aperture. Raising the power to 27x and the darker sky background improved the visibility of 2158. One of my companions had his 103mm Apo. The jump from 70mm to 103mm was very apparent.

Ed.

[nebulaeman]

If I remember correctly it was back in the late 1980s, but I led a team of two sets of astronomers using 13" f/5 Dobs to observe the passage of something like a 35% Waning Moon through M35.  This was before Hipparcos/Tycho and the current Gaia Missions and so we were looking to precisely time the reappearances of about 100 cluster members each for future measurements of Milky Way gravitational effects.  Each station required a team of two - one to observe and time the events and one to monitor the predictions and warn the observer as to where on the Moon's limb to expect the next event.  This was needed as each event tended to happen within seconds of an earlier event and the observer has to move along the Moon's limb fairly quickly to insure not missing the next event.  We timed stars down to 13th magnitude, but all this has been replaced by the Gaia Mission results.  However, the TEAM effort was still quite enjoyable and others might remember that the Moon occults many star clusters in the Zodiacal region fairly regularly.  If I were to do it today it would be done with a large telescope armed with a low light CCD or CMOS video camera and a GPS Time Inserter to record all events to within 0.03 seconds.  You might note my image at the upper left is a 0.5 degree video with five stacked 0.03 second frames for a total of 0.15 seconds of NGC 7293.  I made a negative of the image so as to help bring out the nebulosity.  nebulaeman

Quote

 

 

[Klitwo]

Nebulaeman...

What are your impressions of LH85 in the Large Magellanic Cloud?  Is it possible to record it with a low light CCD or CMOS video camera?   (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LH_95.jpg)

Because I live on the island of Guam and Saipan in the Southern Pacific Ocean...I can spot the LMC from my location.....

https://www.guampdn.com/story/life/2018/02/07/find-milky-ways-satellite-galaxy/313799002/

Klitwo

 

 

[NGC 1502]

 

Hi to some of our international members ?

Ed.

[Lurcher]

Nice write up Ed. Sorry I'm a bit slow in reading your post. I've made a note to see if I can see NGC 2158 myself next time I'm out. I love little challenges like that.

(If we EVER get any clear skies EVER again!).

Thanks,

Martin.

 

[nebulaeman]

Klitwo:  Any target is worth trying.  One of the topics in my book is that back in the 1960s it seemed nothing was possible unless you spent more money on a bigger telescope!  One of the messages in my book is to try any telescope with many eyepieces and filters on any target and see what YOU can see (in a dark sky).  In video remember that it is easy to collect a number of frames in good seeing and stack them to enhance the view like I did with NGC7293 in just 0.15 seconds stacking five 0.03 second frames and then making a negative to enhance the low surface brightness object which ends up be easy in any telescope that can provide the appropriate field of view.  nebulaeman